Interactions - March/April 2013

Looking at the automotive user interface and how it has changed, in particular throughout the past decade, we see a lot of changes and challenges when it comes to usable and at the same time safe interfaces. Driven by technical advances, assistance systems, and especially by consumer devices, we expect the number of functions in the car to increase even further throughout the coming years. This means consequently that the hierarchical CID menus that provide access to different functions will become more and more complex. Even if controls provide haptic feedback, browsing through the menus to find a desired function will require a lot of the driver’s visual attention and cause driver distraction. A revival of the initial paradigm of one-to-one mappings can be observed in BMW’s concept of “functional bookmarks” [ 13]. For frequently used functions, such as radio stations, favorite settings, or navigation destinations, shortcut buttons can be used. When a finger approaches a (user-defined, freely assigned) bookmark button, visual information about the function of the button is provided on the screen. Once the button is pressed, the function is activated. Functional bookmarks combine the benefit of haptic controls with personalized interaction. If the driver knows the function assignment by heart, he or she can operate these buttons eyes-free and speed up his or her interaction time enormously.

As long as the task of driving a car is not completely automated, visual attention should get diverted away from the road as little as possible. Since the audio channel is already occupied by other activities in the car such as talking to passengers and listening to the radio, in the coming years haptic and tactile feed-

4. http://www.audi.com/com/brand/en/tools/advice/ glossary/ mmi.browser.html 5. https://secure.drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/ magazine/articles/Vehicle-Insider/Remote-Touch-System 6. http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/a8/a8/technolo- gy-as-standard/ mmi-touch.html 7. Richter, H., Ecker, R., Deisler, C., and Butz, A. Hap Touch and the 2+ 1 state model: Potentials of haptic feedback on touch based in-vehicle information systems. Proc. of the 2nd International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications. ACM, New York, 2010, 72-79. 8. Spies, R., Blattner, A., Lange, C., Wohlfarter, M., Bengler, K., and Hamberger, W. Measurement of driver’s distraction for an early prove of concepts in automotive industry at the example of the development of a haptic touchpad. In Human-Computer Interaction. Interaction Techniques and Environments, LNCS 6762. J. Jacko, ed. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, 2011, 125-132. 9. Maier, T., Schmid, M., and Aleko, P. HMI with adaptive control elements. ATZautotechnology 8 (2008-07), 50-55; http://www.atzonline.de/ Artikel/3/8252/HMI-with-Adaptive-Control- Elements.html 10. Van Erp, J.B.F. and Van Veen, H. A.H.C. Vibrotactile in-vehicle navigation system. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour 7, 4-5 (2004), 247-256. 11. Kern, D., Marshall, P., Hornecker, E., Rogers, Y., and Schmidt, A. Enhancing navigation information with tactile output embedded into the steering wheel. Proc. of Pervasive Computing. Springer, 2009. 12. Asif, A. and Boll, S. Where to turn my car? Comparison of a tactile display and a conventional car navigation system under high load condition. Proc. of the 2nd International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications. ACM, New York, 2010, 64-71. 13. http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technol-ogy/technology_guide/articles/functional_book-marks.html

back in the various forms described here will receive more attention in the development process of automotive user interfaces. The simplest and already most common usage of tactile feedback is to alert the driver about potential hazards or to raise his or her attention to further visual information shown on the display.

The fact that more driving-related apps and personal devices that are not or are only partially integrated into the system find their way into the car raises new challenges, but also provides new opportunities for haptic feedback. Add-ons such as steering wheel or seat covers that provide haptic feedback can be offered by third-party suppliers, together with an associated app for a smartphone.

Overall, we assume the task of designing automotive user interfaces will remain challenging throughout the coming years. New functions and technologies will continuously find their way into the car and want to be operated while driving. At the same time, driving safety needs to be maintained and even improved. Therefore, the main goal is to keep driver distraction low, for example, by reducing the necessity of visual attention other than to the road. By using haptic or tactile feedback, an additional modality can be used to pass information to the driver. While tactile feedback has already found its way into the car for basic warnings, it will be interesting to see how additional haptic feedback will be integrated into future cars.

ENDNOTES:
1. Kern, D. and Schmidt, A. Design space for
driver-based automotive user interfaces. Proc. of
1st International Conference on Automotive User
Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications.
ACM, New York, 2009, 3-10.
2. http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technol-
ogy/technology_guide/articles/ controller.html
3. http://www4.mercedes-benz.com/manual-cars/
ba/cars/221/en/overview/ comand.html

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dagmar Kern works as an HMI
developer at Bertrandt
Ingenieurbuero GmbH in Cologne,
Germany. She studied media
informatics at the University of
Bastian Pfleging is a research
assistant at the Institute for
Visualization and Interactive
Systems (VIS) at the University of
Stuttgart. His general research
interests are multimodal and natu-
ral user interfaces. In particular, he
is interested in human-computer interaction in the
automotive context. He received his M.Sc. in comput-
er science from the Technical University of Dortmund.